Immigration

Full Fact

With the election opening shots for 2015 being fired, we are preparing for the worse as all sides lie, conceal and obfuscate the facts in a bid to win votes. Nothing new in that you might say, however; it just seems that things are getting worse in that department. 

One such ‘hot’ area for divided opinions will be immigration, when we have found some interesting facts that might dispel some of the 'low ground mist' over the subject.

The replacement [human being] rate needed to resupply our population at its current level, is 2.1 per woman. Higher in the developing world as more children die. The birth rate in the EU is 1.59. These people are needed to pay the next generations bills for health and retirement costs.

Short of this next generation of taxpayers, the only thing we can do is import them. We need high and sustained levels of immigration. The Office of Budgetary Responsibility estimates the UK will need 140,000 immigrants a year in order to meet these rising costs.

The problem with immigration is the benefits come in the medium and long term. Encouraging smart students with science, computing and engineering degrees to study, then live in the UK needs investment and forward thinking. In the short term migrant workers may need benefits to get established.

Towns that attract these people are going to have a short-term issue with a shortage of schools, housing and health care. However if we want a benefit system that can afford to provide the help and support most people want and expect, this influx of workers is needed.

In the long term conditions in the EU will even out. Right now the under developed areas of the EU will not produce the conditions to create work for all their citizens and inevitably people want to come the more prosperous areas, an effect rather like water on a tin tray.

If we can see beyond the pockets where high immigration has caused tensions and look at an EU in ten to fifteen years’ time, a lot of these immediate issues will have smoothed themselves out. Or so we hope. 

If companies can move their cash around the EU then workers have to be able to move too. Or companies can hold them, to ransom, threatening to move but leaving the workers behind, if they will not agree to lower wages or poorer terms.

The energy wars between China and the US are already causing tensions, and the EU and Russia are locked in conflict in Ukraine. The UK with its dwindling army of a mere 80,000 odd soldiers and a service based economy could never mix it up alone with the worlds superpowers of tomorrow. We are in a connected world and although we understand people will have short term frustration over immigration – long term we need to attract people and remain in the EU.

If we scrapped the benefits system we could turn off the immigration flow, but what will the vast majority of citizens live on in old age? The most expensive healthcare system in the world is in the USA and despite its faults, the Health Service is one of our nations great assets. To fund it we need to accept that immigration is needed. As they say however the devil may be 'in the detail'.  How much is acceptable and under what terms?